The Thought That Counts
by BehindTheSky
Summary: Feliciana has always been slightly peculiar. When she is sent to live with her grandfather, the rumors that plagued her before continue to do so. She doesn't have many friends. At least, until she's paired with a German boy. MindReader!Fem!Italy x Germany
1. Meet

**A/N**

What am I doing starting another story? I don't know xD But hey, my dear sis LOVED this, so hopefully I can get the same reaction from you wonderful folks who love GerIta

Warnings: Eh, some bullying…Lovino being Lovi xD

Fem!Italy x Germany

Feliciana liked animals. She always had. For starters, they couldn't call her an idiot or a ditz. And most household pets were pretty warm and snuggly and never though anything mean.

Well, except some of those really sassy cats that the crazy cat lady next door had. Feliciana swore that she trained them to just sit there and glare.

The Italian bent down and picked up the small orange kitten. It mewed and swiped at Feliciana with its claws. Feliciana jerked away from it for a moment before hugging it, maybe just a _bit_ to tight. It mewed again and wiggled for a moment before stilling. A moment later the small thing began purring, it's body vibrating against Feliciana's chest.

She smiled and continued walking home. She had been skipping before, but she didn't want to startle the small animal.

"What should I call you?" Feliciana said to the cat. It didn't respond, but that was something she liked about animals. They never said or though anything strange or mean or weird.

That's right. Thought.

Feliciana had always been able to hear other people's thoughts, as long as she could remember. When she was small, she would talk about it all the time, with family and strangers alike, responding to inner questions and comments.

At first, her parents had thought that it was just a passing phase. By the time she hit seven, they had signed her up for counseling. It had gone on for a few years before she had finally gotten the message and pretended that it really _had_ just been a phase and that it was over.

Her parents had sent her away to live with her grandfather after that, as people had started to view her as being not quite right in the head. Her parents, being who they were with reputation and such, were quick to rid themselves of their dumb daughter. Her brother soon followed, as they couldn't stand his personality and sarcastic remarks. The two had never been all that close, but they didn't really hate each other either. It worked, for a while at least.

It had been the summer between sixth and seventh grade when somebody started spreading rumors about her being retarded. Feliciana had never figured out who it was, or if it had been an old classmate or just somebody who had overheard their parents speaking about the weird new girl in class, and how they wondered why she hadn't been assigned to the special education section.

Lovino had been suspended for a month after he punched somebody and broke their nose when he had overheard them talking about what a retard his sister was. Sure, Feliciana thought, it did take time for things to catch on, but she _could_ see people when they gave her funny looks or spoke about her a bit louder than what they would gossip about a 'normal' person.

Being able to hear what they thought didn't make it any better. There were many things that many people would never voice out loud that ricocheted around their minds, sometimes even flying out of fingers onto websites that spewed information right and wrong to anybody who searched the right terms or received a chain mail or happened to be on a social networking sight at the right time.

Feliciana wished that she could just turn it off. Off, away, live a normal life.

The Italian shifted the kitten so that it sat more comfortably. Its claws opened and retracted again and again, 'holding' onto Feliciana's jacket. It mewed again, and then yawned.

Kicking a pebble out of her way with her pink high-top converse, Feliciana stepped on the cracks between the paving stones as she walked, humming the old rhyme under her breath.

"Step on a crack, break your mother's back…"

Walking up the steps to her house, she shifted the kitten to one arm while she searched in her pockets for they key. It wasn't in her pants pocket, or in the pockets of her lime green hip-length jacket. It was unzipped, despite the cold, and had a large hood with a dark silver lining. It was zip-up.

"Ve, I must've lost it…" She stood dazedly at the front door for a moment before running around the edge of the house and into the backyard. The gate was open, so she just had to push it with her shoulder to get in. (It only took her a moment to figure out that is _was_ actually open)

Walking through the still-dewy grass, she watched her feet as she walked. It was a rather pretty contrast between bright pink and dark green.

She looked up just in time to narrowly avoid the apple tree that had taken up residence in the yard. Squeaking and twirling out of the way, she hopped onto the cement ground-level deck and wiped some stray grass off of one foot with the other.

Walking forwards, she tried the sliding glass door, only to discover that it was locked. Feliciana would have tried the window too, but her hands were full of sleeping cat and she didn't have the heart to set him down.

"Sleepy. That's it!" Feliciana said, stroking the kitten's soft ears.

A sharp banging on the door interrupted her from her sudden idea for the name of the cat, Sleepy.

"You want to come inside, or would you rather spend the night out there?"

Glancing upwards, Feliciana saw her brother standing behind the sliding glass door. His hand was on the lock, and he looked as though he still wasn't quite so sure if he was going to open it for his forgetful sister or not.

"Lovi! Look at the kitty!" Feliciana held the 'kitty' up. It blinked sleepily and yawned again as a greeting to the annoyed Italian.

The door slid open and Feliciana entered the house after getting a pointed stare at her wet shoes from Lovino and removing them by hopping about frantically and stepping on the heels.

"Doing that isn't good for your shoes, you know."

Feliciana started humming in response. For some reason, Lovino always…edited…his speech when he was talking directly at his sister. He used a lot of words that Feliciana didn't know when he spoke to everybody else.

"Grandpa isn't going to let you keep that thing." He gestured with the hand that wasn't in his pocked towards the sleeping cat.

"But, um, well, ve…" Feliciana looked from side to side, as if for a place to hide the cat. Lovino raised an eyebrow at his sister's frantic movements.

Feliciana cradled the cat closer, eyes watering. She always hated how she cried easily, in both senses of the phrase. Cried quickly and became sad easily. Though she was getting pretty good at hiding the latter. It had only taken her sixteen years.

"You'll probably want to get rid of it-"

"Sleepy."

"_It _before grandfather gets back." He finished. "He might do something else with it, other than taking it to the shelter."

Feliciana looked at the small kitten. "But…but it's so _cute_, Lovi!"

_Oh, bust out the fucking nickname now, huh?_

Feliciana looked at the floor for a moment before skipping closer to Lovino, lifting the kitten away from her chest again and holding it beneath his nose.

Lovino glared at it and pretended he didn't know that Feliciana knew that he was thinking about how it really _was_ quite cute.

"Fine, keep the damn thing. But don't come running to me later."

"Ve, thank you Lovi!"

Feliciana danced away down the hallway, only stumbling once, earning a snort followed by a sigh from his brother.

Opening the door to her bedroom, Feliciana twirled around and fell onto her bed, laying on her back for a moment before sitting up and setting Sleepy down on the fluffy pillow at the end of the bed. The cat yawned and stretched before settling back down again.

Pulling off her backpack, she dragged the heavy thing over to her desk and sat in the wheeled chair that went with it. Unzipping the bag, she pulled out her binders and notebooks along with the little journal she wrote down all her homework in. Lovino had given her the idea a year or so back when she had been constantly forgetting what had been assigned that day in class.

Digging up her mechanical pencil from the bottom of her bag from where it had fallen that day, she started on her math homework.

Well, stared at it blankly was probably a more proper term, but it was graded for completion, not correctness.

Feliciana doodled a swirl on her paper, adding to the multitude of other flowers and butterflies covering the paper. The swirl acted as leaves for the flowers, and connected the flowers to each other. A voice reached her ears, and she turned around to see the group of girls behind her pouring over an expensive-looking phone.

"Hello?" Said one of them. Feliciana pointed at herself questioningly, not speaking. "Yes, _you_." _Dumbass _

The brunette winced at the thought. The girl's friends weren't thinking things that were all that different. _Stupid_ and _retarded_ were both words that were common when people were speaking with her. She had once gone to a teacher for help on an assignment and he had though something similar. Feliciana had only asked for Lovino for help since then.

"Class! Attention, class!" Said the teacher, who smacked a ruler onto his wooden podium in order to get the teenagers attention faster. This teacher wasn't the one who had been mean, he was actually quite nice to his students, and was rarely annoyed at them, internally or otherwise. Well, _most_ of them, at least.

The class shuffled and rustled and eventually quieted down enough for the teacher to speak again. He pulled a folder out from beneath a stack of loose papers on his desk. The folder was a startling blue color, standing out against the white and beige papers covering his desk. It looked old, and was filled to the bursting with more papers of different lengths, colors, and thicknesses.

"Today." He started, and then pointedly glared at a disruptive student in the back row. "We are going to be starting a new project!"

The chorus of groans and eye rolls that filled the room was something that he obviously encountered often, as he sighed in response and shook his head.

"Sir! Sir?" Feliciana, and a few others, turned to see who was speaking. A dark-haired girl with her hair in low pigtails, tied with red ribbons, was bouncing up and down in her chair with her arm raised high.

"Yes, Angelique?" _What is it this time_?

"Oh, well, you see, I was wondering if we get to pick our groups?" Her voiced rose quickly at the end, as though when she started the sentence, it wasn't intended to be a question, but by the time she reached the last few words, she realized that it should be.

"Not this time. I've already chosen your groups." _Can't have another last year…_

Feliciana wondered what had happened last year to make him want to divide them up with people they didn't know. She never liked group projects, because everybody always pushed her off to the side, after giving her all the work that required drawing for the project. It wasn't as though Feliciana disliked drawing, in fact she loved it, but she really did like socializing with people. Especially nice people.

Continuing her flower doodles, the Italian listened in on the teacher speaking. One more reason she disliked school was the constant buzzing in her ears, the buzzing of thoughts and daydreams and wonderings. Feliciana had tried to figure out ways to block it out, but had never succeeded. It was always…disturbing…what people though about, because she didn't just hear words, but saw pictures so. And sometimes they moved…She made a face and drew a star in the center of one flower.

"And Feliks Lukasiwicz is paired with Toris Laurinitis." This was greeted with a fist pump from the Pole, who leaned over and hugged the Lithuanian sitting across the isle. Toris was yanked forward, and dropped his pencil onto the floor. Feliks leapt to grab it and smack it back down onto his desk. The teacher smirked, as he knew that Toris was probably one of the only people who could get Feliks to sit down, work, and finish the work. Being silent was a whole other story, though.

Feliciana listened in on the teacher talking, waiting for her name to be called. Of course, because she was blocking out the internal voices, she also accidently forgot to not block out the important ones. Which happened a lot, much to Lovino's great annoyance.

Unzipping her pink pencil pouch, she pulled out an orange highlighter and started coloring in the flowers. The highlighter bled through the paper, but she didn't notice as the math worksheet beneath the lined paper also gained its fair share of flowers and butterflies.

She jumped as she heard a loud yell from the back of the classroom. Apparently her brother wasn't happy with his partner. His thoughts were certainly a lot more vulgar than what was spewing out of his mouth, though.

"WHAT? NO! I WILL NOT work with that guy! He…he's so…so…." Lovino yelled, standing halfway through the sentence and shaking one fist at the teacher, who just raised an eyebrow. Feliciana giggled as the teacher pointedly ignored Arthur smacking the loud Italian upside the head with his Psych 101 textbook. Lovino sat quickly, rubbing his jaw and glaring at the Englishman, who shook his head and sat back down in his seat, adjacent to Lovino's.

The teacher coughed and continued. "Anyways…Feliciana Vargas is paired with," his voice trailed off slightly at the end as his dark eyes scanned up and down the long list of students who were currently taking residence in his classroom.

"Ludwig Beilschmidt."

Ludwig glanced up from where he had been staring at his desk. He looked across the classroom, where the girl in question was. She hadn't looked up, and was drawing something on some paper, at least from what Ludwig could tell. He had never really spoken to the girl, although he had shared a few classes with her over the years.

"Alright, kiddos, the rest of the class period is work time. Shoo shoo, now."

A general shuffling and clattering filled the classroom as students stood and moved around, sitting so that there were two per desk, and banishing any person who stayed who wasn't in the group.

Feliciana remained at her seat, having not noticed the command, until she was brought back to reality by a rude poke on her shoulder. Making eye contact with the source, Feliciana set her orange highlighter on an angle and tilted her head slightly.

"Ve?"

"Um, excuse me? I have to sit here with my friend. Now leave," _Oh my GOD, what a totally retard_

Feliciana closed her binder and pencil case hurriedly. After a moment, she shoved all of it into her backpack and dragged the thing away from her desk, only to stand awkwardly by the wall. She hadn't heard who her partner was, and Feliciana really hoped that her partner had heard, and at least knew who she was.

Holding her backpack by one strap, the actual bag still sitting on the floor, the younger Italian peered around the room as she tried not to listen to the conversation going on between the girl who had taken her seat, and her desk partner. They were speaking in what they considered to be hushed tones, but it really wasn't all that quiet.

"Did you see that? So, so gullible!" This was followed by a giggle.

"I know, right? She would be really easy to get to buy us lunch today!"

"Maybe, but her insane brother might attack us…"

"God, you're right…."

The conversation continued as Feliciana shuffled away from the duo. It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to convince her to buy him or her their lunch. Feliciana had a really hard time saying no to them, half because she didn't want to be mean, but also slightly because she wanted people to like her. Most of them only wanted her to do that because her grandfather was rich. Feliciana had only figured this out after freshman year, and Lovino yelling at her about it. Feliciana didn't blame Lovino, though, because he had really only been trying to help.

"Um, excuse me?"

Feliciana jumped and turned to her right, to see a tall blond boy standing there awkwardly.

"Ve?"

"You _are_ Feliciana Vargas, right?" He thought something, but it was in a language that she didn't understand. Well, that or he was thinking gibberish.

"Oh! Um, yes, that's me!" She replied, saluting to him. He raised an eyebrow, then proceeding to wave his hand in a dismissive gesture and turn to scan the classroom for a free desk.

"Ja, alright." He beckoned to her, and she followed him (dragging her backpack on the floor) to a free desk in the far corner. He sat, rather awkwardly, as though he wasn't sure whether to let Feliciana sit first or not. Feliciana plopped down into the seat next to him and pulled her backpack up onto her lap, hugging it.

"I'm Feliciana Vargas! But…if you want, you can call me Feli!" She said, smiling widely and turning to him. He straightened the project papers unnecessarily and replied.

"Ludwig. Ludwig Beilschmidt."

A/N

LOVE IT? HATE IT?

Well, if you want more, the review~

(And read my other stories. *Is shameless in self-advertising*)

;D Anywho, toodles for now.


	2. Greet

**A/N**

;D Huzzah for fast updates and gorgeous reviews~3 Love you all!

So~ Some stuff from Luddy's perspective here at the beginning, but it switches back to Feli later~

AND. I don't call Belgium 'Bella' or Liechtenstein 'Lilli'

Belgium = Ellen Peeters

Liechtenstein = Sisia Vogel

AND My OC, Jack (which you may have met, he's my evil character xD) Will by genswapped (WHO SAYS I CAN'T DO THAT TO MY OWN OC?) and that is Jacquelyn~

On with the show~

Chapter Two

Ludwig pulled the pencil pouch away from the Italian for the umpteenth time that hour, setting it on the opposite corner of his desk. Feliciana's hands followed it, though her arms weren't long enough to reach. Ludwig pushed her away, he had never really been the most touchy-feely person on the planet.

"Ah! No!"

The German turned to her. "What?" She had a rather horrified expression on her face.

"I got pen on my jacket…" She pouted and started trying to scrub it off with her hands, only succeeding in rubbing it in to the bright green fabric.

And, she was also frighteningly similar to an ADD cat in a mouse factory. They hadn't gotten all that much done that entire period, and Ludwig sensed the project getting dumped on him. Again.

Pulling his arm out of her grasp, the blond continued adding to the fill-in-the-blank questions that the preliminarty parts of the project required. She had a paper too, and had actually succeeded in filling in two of the blanks; name and date.

However, on the good side, at least he wasn't being dumped all the work because he was with some drug addicts who skipped school half the time. Teachers always seemed to pair him with them, as though he could make them work. She just seemed as though her mind was in an alternate dimension half the time.

Suddenly, Feliciana stopped her movement and seemed to deflate slightly. Even her eyes seemed to dull a bit.

"You okay?"

She jumped and turned to him, limp hands still partially clasping the part of her jacket with the vivi blue stain.

"Ve? Oh…I'm fine!" She answered, smiling at him, though this time it seemed slightly watery.

Maybe the alternate dimension theory wasn't so far-fetched. Then again, his theories would remain completely to himself for the rest of eternity.

The actual assignment wasn't all that hard, and would probably only last for at most two weeks or so. Though, with the girl that practically spouted flowers and eminated an aura of puppies, it could get a bit annoying.

"Um…what do you think about this?" Ludwig asked, wondering if he could somehow _get_ her attention, and _keep_ her attention. He slid the paper folder over to the Italian and pointed at the lines filled out in his neat handwriting. She leaned over her elbow, which was sitting on the corner of her desk.

"Mmm…this part?" She pointed at the paper.

"Ja." Ludwig nodded.

"Ve…yea, it's great!" Feliciana said, nodding enthusiastically for a moment before going back to her doodling. Colorful highlighters seemed to gravitate towards her, as a few had appeared next to her once again. Either she had somehow managed to sneak the pencil pouch Ludwig had confiscated, or Feli kept them in her pockets.

"What are we going to do about the poster…?" Ludwig really phrased it more at himself, and was mildly surprised when Feliciana spoke up.

"Oh! I have all kinds of artsy things!" She clapped her hands together.

"….Artsy in what way?" Ludwig was willing to bet they were mostly pink or sparkly. Not as though he had anything _against_ sparkles, but last time they had appeared within half a mile of his brother, the whole school had found themselves with art-herpes for the next for months.

Ludwig sometimes still found the infernal things in his clothes.

"Well…glue, and, and, scissors, and, um, paint. Lots'a paint." She counted the items off on her fingers as she spoke, and her expression was somewhat concentrated as she tried to think of all the art supplies she had.

"Oh. Alright."

"Do you like paint? The poster could be all pretty!"

'Pretty' wasn't exactly the word Ludwig wanted to use to describe the poster when it ended up being finished. Constant supervision of the use of sparkles and pink would be needed when the poster was being worked on. Ludwig sighed, as he would probably have the writing part, _and_ the supervision.

Scanning through the packet some more, Ludwig's eyes alighted on the actual _experiment_ part of it. Oh joy to the world. Baking soda and vinegar, the role models of the chemical reactions world. Gilbert was always particularly infatuated with getting his hands on metos and coke, but both were kept out of reach. Thank goodness.

The project required that both members worked on it equally, meaning that they would probably have to stay after school to work on it some days. Though Ludwig doubted that the librarian would appreciate baking soda and vinegar all over her nice books. The packet listed a few other options for experiments, but those lasted over a few days, and considering that _some_ people in their group had the attention span of a goldfish, Ludwig would rather stick to something shorter.

"Yea…I suppose I like paint." Who in their right mind _didn't_ like paint?

Feliciana smiled again. "Should…should I bring them to school?"

"Um…" Ludwig contributed to the conversation. He wasn't all that sure how much paint would actually be needed for the poster, as it would mostly be typed paragraphs and data tables. "No, the teachers might not like that."

"Oh…"

"B-but that doesn't mean we can't use any!" Crap. She had had that kicked puppy look that nobody could ever even think of denying. It would be like trying to put some rare species of butterfly through a paper shredder, or suffocating kittens, trying to deny her.

"Ve, really?" She brightened up again.

"Ja, really." Ludwig supposed he could just let her take the poster board home one day and decorate the background…but he was dragged from his thoughts by a voice.

"Oh, maybe you could come over! Because, you know, paints at school are a no-no!"

…That could work too. Then he could make sure that not too many flowers and rainbows made their way onto the board.

"Mhm, sure. Maybe next week?"

She bounced up and down. "Ve, sure! But…" she paused, "I'll have to ask Lovi if it's alright…"

"Lovi?"

"Ah! Lovi is Lovino! My brother!"

…Ah. The loud, grumpy Italian boy that Ludwig shared a few classes with. The one who didn't _really_ like him all that much.

The bell going off, signaling them to go to their next class interrupted the duo. Ludwig stood and gathered up the scattered papers, Feliciana leaping up and following suit. Her left hand was covered in doodles, and the little stain on her coat was still apparent. The markers were washable, though, so it should come out easily, Ludwig reckoned.

Ludwig swung his backpack over his shoulder and left the classroom, not walking particularly quickly. His next class was quite close, so there wasn't any real need to hurry.

Feliciana sat in her math classroom, absentmindedly organizing her binder on the desk. It was always hard to concentrate, especially in places with large amounts of people. Like school. She had tried to get her grandfather to let her be homeschooled, but he had told her that she needed to have some kind of social life. Feliciana remembered that one time she had fainted during a school assembly because of all the yelling and talking and _thinking_.

Math class was also annoying because nobody paid any attention and were constantly thinking about things other than math, which was very distracting indeed.

…And then there were those girls. Feliciana had never understood why it was entertaining to do that to people.

"I mean _god_, such thunder thighs!"

"Wow, I know what you mean!"

Feliciana watched the even unfold, completely unsure of what to do. She knew the girl who was being bullied; it was somebody who Lovino had had a crush on when he was little. Ellen something.

Feliciana stood and shuffled over to the edge of the classroom. She felt, and heard, a few eyes on her back, most just thinking about how she should stay out of it.

"Um, excuse me?" She said, awkwardly tapping one of the tall, ridiculously skinny girls on the shoulder.

The girl whirled around, ruler-straight hip length black hair swirling around. She had startlingly blue eyes, darker than Ludwig's, but still just as icy. Her skin was quite pale, too, unlike the current apparent fashion of having orange skin.

"What?" Her voice snapped at Feliciana. _God, just leave us alone!_

Ellen shook her head frantically at the little Italian, but her thoughts said otherwise. The headband in her hair was slightly off center, and she was pressed against the wall.

"Ve, well, it's not nice to bully!" Feliciana nodded, as though she was agreeing with herself.

"Oh?" She flicked some of her hair out of her face and turned to the girl with mouse-brown hair next to her. "What do you think of her, Riley?"

Riley laughed, even her laugh was mousy, and shook her head. "Idiot, Jacquelyn."

They stepped away from Ellen, who stayed, watching. Feliciana didn't blame her for not acting, though; her thoughts were conflicted and unsure. It looked as though she had stood up for people before, and that hadn't ended well.

Feliciana took a step backwards as they moved forwards. It almost seemed like some kind of weird movie, those ones that stereotype high school.

"I know." Jacquelyn clapped her hands, "Did you do your homework?" _Probably not, she's kind of an idiot…_

"Well, um, ve, yes?" Feliciana began fiddling with the straps on her backpack.

"Can we _see_ it?" _Duh?_

Feliciana started shaking her head, but was interrupted by a comment from Riley. "If you let us copy your homework, we'll stop bothering fatso over here." Ellen winced at that and crossed her arms.

"Um…okay?" Feliciana didn't really care about the consequences, so she removed her backpack and set it on the floor, crouching next to it. Rustling through it, she eventually pulled out her homework and stood again, shakily handing it to Jacquelyn.

Jacquelyn snatched the paper from Feli and left for her seat, towing Riley with her.

Feliciana watched them go for a moment before turning to Ellen.

"Aha…you okay?"

Ellen looked worriedly at Feliciana. "Are you?"

"Me?" Feliciana pointed at herself questioningly. "Why me?"

Ellen shook her head and left, leaving Feliciana to wander back to her seat.

Class proceeded relatively normally from there, Feliciana unable to concentrate and resorting to more drawings. She would have brought her sketchbook, but had stopped a while ago after nonno made her stop drawing in class. That was just after she had been caught by a teacher, drawing.

Feliciana decided that she would draw when she got home.

"Miss Vargas?"

"Mmm?" She looked up to see the teacher standing over her. "Ve?"

The teacher, Mrs. F., was used to Feliciana's antics and responded appropriately. "Your homework."

Feliciana's mouth turned into an 'O' shape. "Oh…" She turned to look at Jacquelyn, who was sitting in the front row, waving at her and shaking her head. "I don't have it."

Mrs. F sighed and made a checkmark on her clipboard before turning away and continuing down the rows.

Feliciana started as a note written on bright blue paper landed on her desk. She set down her glittery gel pen and picked it up, unfolding the paper.

**Thanks for the homework, tard**

The Italian stared at the note for a moment before shoving it into her coat pocket.

**A/N**

YES. I know, bad short chapter is bad. I tried to add more to it, but nothing seemed to really fit into it. And now I want to smack those annoying girls +_+

ANYWAYS. I should be writing other things right now. Like the Spamano…~_~ Which I shall get around to eventually. Today is mother's day, so I should probably be doing other things, like paying attention to mine. But she's not home right now, soooooooo~

Review~?


	3. Discuss

**A/N:**

*crawls out of grave* Yes. I am alive. For now. I'll be traveling for most of the summer, so I don't know if I'll be able to update X_X But here's a rather long chapter for you guys with some plot development!

**Bold text** is somebody on the other end of a phone conversation~!

Anyways, on with the show!

And please pardon the beginning of this chapter. I couldn't resist. 3

…And pity Alessio. Pity him. Because OCs are hated. *huggles him*

"Oh mein gott, your partner is a _girl_? Who?"

Ludwig rolled his eyes heavenward as the voice floated over his shoulder. Setting his pencil down at the edge of his paper, the blond turned around in his chair to get a better look at the person his parents _claimed_ was related to him, but Ludwig had never been really sure. Fed-Ex had probably dropped him off…

"So?"

"_So_? I got stuck with a total prick when I had to take that class!"

…Right. Ludwig still distinctively remembered Gilbert yelling about being stuck with the 'sissy' and how he wished that he could have picked his group. (Ludwig doubted that the Austrian he had been paired with was any happier).

"Ja, well, she's kinda…" Ludwig;s voice trailed off towards the end, not wanting to finish his thought.

"Kinda sorta what, Luddy?"

"She's rather…well, not all the way there?" Ludwig pointed at his head.

"She good looking?"

Gilbert Beilschmidt was wearing a shit-eating grin from his place on one of the couches situated in the living room. It appeared as though he was trying o become one with the thing, as it was so old that the cushions were squishy and anybody who sat in them didn't have a superb chance of standing back up again.

Ludwig turned red and twisted back around in his chair. Math homework was calling.

"Hey! Answer me! Do I know her?"

"Um…how would I know?" Ludwig asked, finishing a problem.

"Because you're disturbingly psychic sometimes, mein bruder." Gilbert said with a flourish of his Xbox controller, accentuated with some kind of combo attack unfolding on the TV screen. Ludwig had never been all that interested in video games.

Shrugging as his only answer, Ludwig continued working on his homework for a moment before remembering something.

"Aren't you interested in somebody else, anyways?"

Gilbert went still. "No. Why would you think that?" He scowled and virtually swung his axe at an enemy. (Well, literally virtually).

"Hm. No reason." Because you rant about it every single day, and you suck at speaking quietly. It must be some kind of defect.

"Pfft. Why would _I_ be interested in _anybody_?" Gilbert snorted and went back to hacking enemies to bits.

"Gee, I don't know." Ludwig said sarcastically, and rather uncharacteristically.

Gilbert paused in his bloody rampage. "Was that _sarcasm_ that I detect?"

Ludwig didn't answer, just continued to write in answers to the math problems. Gilbert sucked at lying. Ludwig was willing to bet the only reason he had gotten away with half of the things had at school because of Francis. (Antonio was just as bad, in Ludwig's opinion).

"Anyways, the girl you're partnered with. Is she hot?" Gilbert's signature smile returned to his face.

"I don't know…"

"Dude. Seriously?"

"Seriously what?" Ludwig said questioningly.

"I'm beginning to suspect that you actually play for the other team, Luddy."

"_What?" _

Gilbert rolled his eyes in Ludwig's direction. "You've never had a _girl_friend."

"So that automatically makes me gay?"

Gilbert sent a cackle in Ludwig's direction at where he was sitting in the dining room. That being his only answer, Ludwig just ignored it and finished up with his math homework.

Now to work on that project…Ludwig found it rather annoying, something that teachers liked to shove on then at the end of the year and in the end decided their overall grades. Sighing, the German pulled out the required papers and got to work on the first few pages of the packet.

The questions were just as generic as any other end-of-the-year project in any class. And repetitive. Horridly repetitive. As repetitive as that awful music video Friday, and that's saying something.

_Is she a hottie_?

Ludwig flicked some stray eraser crud off the edge of his paper. He supposed that she _was_ rather cute.

"Blue or purple?"

"_What?"_

"Blue," Feliciana lifted up a blue piece of paper, "Or purple?" She pointed at one of said color sitting next to her on the floor.

"Umm…Blue? I suppose? Not as though it matters." Replied Lovino from where he had been caught walking from his bedroom to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water.

"What does Sleepy think?" Asked Feliciana.

Lovino shrugged. "Ask the flipping cat, why don't you?" He pointed at said cat, who was sleeping in the large bowl that had, up until that point, contained various art supplies.

Picking up the bowl, Feliciana set it on her lap. "What do you think, Sleepy? Blue or purple?"

Sleepy lifted his head up and yawned, though the bowl restricted his stretching space so he just went back to sleeping.

"He says purple, Lovi~!"

"I am so effing happy." Lovino left the hallway and entered the kitchen. Feliciana heard the clink of glasses being taken from the cabinet, then running water. Lovino appeared a few moments later and shot back down the hallway to his bedroom.

Carefully setting the bowl back down and scooting it over a few inches so that it wasn't sitting on top of any art supplies, Feliciana lifted up the tri-fold that had also been dug out of the closet and leaned it up against the wall. (The tri-fold probably came from some old school project that they had since forgotten about).

Lifting Sleepy out of the place where he was sleeping and set him on the floor, Feliciana scooped up various (sparkly and pink) art supplies and dumped them back into the bowl. Lovino had made her promise to put them away before she got anything dirty …and he had said that it was too soon to be planning any kind of poster.

Maybe she would make some pasta now. Pasta sounded _excellent_. As per usual.

Standing and brushing off her purple skirt, Feliciana skipped out of the (still mostly dirty) living room and entered the kitchen. It was rather large, as was most of the house, large enough to have an island in the middle with a sink and such. Their grandfather was well off, though Feliciana didn't know where he had gotten the money from.

She wondered if Lovino wanted any pasta.

Twirling out of the kitchen, the Italian girl floated down the hallway and burst into her brothers room. Said relative nearly jumped off his bed and grabbed the closest item- a stuffed tomato-and throwing it at her.

"Don't you knock?" He said, throwing daggers at her through his eyes.

The comment completely flying over her head, as well as the pillow, Feliciana spoke, "Lovi~!"

She pushed past him, after retrieving the pillow, and flopped down onto her brothers bed.

"What. Are. You doing?" Lovino's works were enunciated by the retrieval (Read: possessive snuggling) of his pillow.

"Oh." She rolled over, "Do you want any pasta?"

"If I say yes, will you leave?" He made a shooing motion at her.

"Do you want pasta?"

"If you get out of my room!"

Feliciana sat up and got off the bed. Lovino moved around her as she left, watching to make sure she was gone. A voice crackled out through the phone in his hand.

"**See? I'm not the only person who calls you Lovi!"**

Bringing the phone away from his ear, Lovino glared at it for a moment before muttering darkly in its general direction.

"That doesn't give you permission to call me that!"

"…**But it's **_**cute**_**!"**

"Shut your face."

Feliciana didn't finish making her pasta that night – she had been told to put what she had done in the fridge and go to bed long before she finished. Making pasta from scratch took forever with only one person.

"Hey, Lovi?" Feliciana said, yawning and rubbing her eyes. She was wearing a pale pink nightgown with trimmings of lace, one that almost match a few others of varying colors.

"Hm?" Lovino spoke around his toothbrush.

"Where's nonno?"

Lovino paused for a moment and shrugged. "I dunno. Ha' 'ou 'alled 'im?"

Feliciana sniffed and shook her head. "He doesn't answer."

Her brother didn't answer, only shook his head and slammed the door to the bathroom. (Which wasn't that all that strange for him, but Feliciana still jumped when the whoosh of air hit her in the face).

Sighing, Feliciana bent down and lifted up Sleepy from where he was rubbing himself against her leg, leaving stray hairs all over her nightgown.

"I'm tired, Sleepy."

Markus Vargas was not happy. Uncharacteristically so, actually. Usually he was pretty happy and lax about what happened, but they were late. Very, very, very late.

"Where _are_ they?"

A man in his mid twenties jumped at his station at the door. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know." He nervously ran his hand through tousled brown hair, which had been relatively combed when he had first arrived for work.

"Then why don't you find out?" Markus said, leaning forward and grabbing at a bottle of wine as he did so. It was an expensive brand, imported from Italy. Markus missed Italy greatly, and took every opportunity to indulge in things imported from his homeland.

"They were supposed to be here hours ago, a-and I don't have any phone numbers!" Said the _employee_, if he could even be called than.

The thud of the expensive wine bottle slamming down on the expensive desk made the employee – Alessio – jump again. He had gotten to be rather _jittery_ when in the company of expensive wine bottles, especially after he had been nearly brained a few times with them.

"Find them."

Alessio nodded vigorously, not particularly caring what he was agreeing to as long as it meant getting the heck out of there. "Yes sir."

The brown-haired man left the room quickly, straightening his dark navy blue vest as he did so.

The hallway he entered was long and lined with a few other doors, most of which Alessio had been into once or twice for various meetings. Or just to hide.

The hallway _smelled_ expensive, if the lingering odor of perfume was anything to say. Now, Alessio wasn't about to say that he could identify any kind of brand of woman's perfume, but the fact that it was present in the hallway enough showed that the men who worked there had money. Money enough to buy pleasure and freaking roll in the stuff.

Alessio sure as heck didn't, which was why he was here.

Brushing past a heavy velvet curtain, Alessio quickly walked up to an old-fashioned phone built into the wall. Sighing, the brunette dialed the number he wanted and waited for the person on the other end to pick up. Markus had always had a thing for old things, hence the 1930s phone built into the wall. Sure, it was probably all high-tech on the inside, but it gave the place a very strange aura, as if this place had been stuck in time.

"**Pronto."**

The voice that crackled through the phone somehow made Alessio leap with joy and cringe.

"Where _are_ you guys? Markus is getting pissed!"

A long pause followed his question, Alessio hearing a very feminine giggling coming from the other end of the phone. Sighing, Alessio pulled the phone away from his ear and glared at it until it decided to cough up the answer he was looking for.

"**You know."** Said the voice, after some very sexual shushing not directed at Alessio. Thank god. He would probably toss himself of a cliff before letting that happen. "**I heard that **_**you**_**, my friend, are not on Markie's good side right now." **

"Shh! Hurry up! He wants his delivery!" Alessio pressed the phone closer to his ear, as if that would make the man answer faster.

"**Well, he's not going to be getting it."**

"_What? _What the hell do you mean?" Alessio stomped his foot and was highly tempted to punch the wall, but had learned from past experience that that was _not_ a very good idea.

"**We ran into some…complications." **

"What _kind_ of complications?"

"**The complicated kind."**

Alessio held his breath and slammed his forehead against the wall, the cold wood of the wall feeling good against his warm face.

"Jus'…just go away." Alessio slammed the phone down and leaned against the wall. Sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, Alessio buried his head in his hands. What was he supposed to do? He _really_ didn't want any scars on his face from wine bottles.

Pushing himself up, Alessio ambled back to Markus' office with heavy feet. The door to said person's office creaked open, revealing Markus sitting in his chair.

"So?" Said the man.

"Um…well, apparently there were…complications." Alessio tensed himself, ready to turn and run away.

"Complications? What did that _retard_ do?" Markus' voice was low, soft, and deadly.

"I-I don't…know." Alessio paused between those two words as though he could somehow think up of some other reason as to why he wasn't bringing _exactly_ what his boss wanted.

"I want my money, Alessio. And power." The wine bottle tilted to the left, then to the right.

"Y…yes sir."

"Where is Leo?"

Alessio shrugged. "He hung up before I could ask." Or, before Alessio could give him the chance.

"Find him, then."

"Alright."

Alessio turned to leave, but was stopped by one more comment.

"And it's been awhile since I've spoken to my grandchildren…"

Alessio left the room as quickly as he could, hoping that nothing bad would happen while he was away.

**A/N**

Please don't kill me because of OCs! And neither of them represents countries of any sort! They will be appearing, but neither are mary-sues and I hope you don't hate them. I swear I wont write too much from their perspective if I get complete hate about them..*_* Which I hope doesn't happen, as they are both fabulous.

Anyways. The plot thickens…

And reviews may fuel me to write chapters while I'm vacationing…3 They really mean a lot.


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